Christmas Day Skype

This was Christmas Day for Elder Molnar but Christmas Eve for us.  It took forever for us to get the video working for him.  We could see him, but he could not see us.  "Fix it!" he kept saying.  So we had a prayer and viola!  It was P-day for them, thus the casual clothes.  We did get to meet his companion Elder Hubble from Mesa, AZ and two sisters.  We were nearly speechless and no one wanted to say goodbye. He sang a song for us in Tagalog and we had to leave it up to him to leave.  It was great to see him, but for me, I think more difficult than just chatting on the phone.  He is nearly 1/4 of the way through his mission.  For those of you who weren't here to see him, he sends his love.

Mom

12/19/12

HEY!! aight so let's see..

Hahah, so taylor got his toenail "fixed" too? Ha, well if it makes him feel better, once I'm not so busy, I'm gonna have to go back and get another one taken off. Ha...oh well. 

Aight, so let's see. update. So I'm leading the area as of now. My new comp, who is also our district leader, is Elder Hubble. He's a way funny kid from Mesa, Arizona. We have a blast. We always walk around and beat box and freestyle rap. Haha! We're so white! Here, this is one of our normal days we've had so you can get a feel of how things have been going. The other day, we had a few good lessons then got punted a few times so we we're kinda walking around for a minute trying to find places to go. We stopped by a less active family. the parents both work internationally, so they haven't been in town for 3 months. I got to meet the mom, and she was so excited about her kids. Her oldest has been less active for a while now since they're always gone, but we've been working with him and the Single Adults have done a great job in reactivating him. And she was so stoked 'cause now her son wants to go on a mish. She had a co worker I met. He was taught by missionaries about 10 years ago and loved it, but had to stop because of his job. But I talked to him for a while and we got his info, so missionaries can go back. So sick! That guy's basically ready to get baptized. No joke. Then we were walking around, just gettin' hit on by all the school girls and having Dragonball Z fights with little kids on the streets. Just the usual. Ya know..

Ha!  Then my comp saw this drunk guy totally hammered, walking around. So my comp told me I should talk to him. So I did. Might as well just for fun. Drunk people are funny. We walked with him for like two seconds and then we walked by his house and he was like,"you guys coming in?" And then walked inside. We were gonna just give him a pamphlet, but he walked inside too soon. We had time, so we were like, ha might as well. Went inside. His family was there and was kinda laughing like, "What the heck, drunk dad just brought home these two goofy lookin' white kids". But they were super nice. It was kind of a joke at first and we had some very interesting talks with the drunk guy. He kept talking in third person and he kept asking, "Would you believe my name's Alex?" But we talked with the fam a bit about the church, and they said we could come back. surprisingly. And they were actually pretty enthusiastic about it too. Lots of Word of Wisdom issues and abuse in the family. I could tell pretty easily. We went back the other day, but couldn't teach cause only girls were there. But I'm way stoked to help this family, and they were super excited to see us. But there's the drunk guy who's 57, and he has a couple kids who have their own kids and families. Sick! And they're all dentists so they're way loaded. But yeah!

Oh, I met my first Down Syndrome Philippino the other day.He gave me a hug and told me he missed me, gave me his number and asked for "a bible". Ha!

Leading the area's good. It's really helped my Tagalog too, which is good cause it still sucks. S'all good though. I was pretty proud. My comp and I had to end up teaching Gospel Principles class at church, so he taught half then I taught half. I actually taught pretty well, but don't worry For some reason, some of my lessons later that day, my Tagalog wasn't too good. God made sure to humble me.

Oh, last night we went to the temple and took a bunch of families and a couple of our recent converts. They put Christmas lights up kinda like a lil' temple square, and we did a tour for the missionaries and our homies we brought. Way sick!

Eh that's about it for now. See ya next week! Literally!! Via Skype. I'll set up a Skype and get it to work,  but I'm calling on Christmas day for me at 11:00 am, my time. So that's I think 8:00 pm Monday night for you guys? Invite whoever: Brittany, Weston, Ben. It'll be good to see you guys. I can't wait! I guess just stay near the computer and we'll make it work.

PS: I started doing P90X every morning, so when you see how fat I've gotten, don't freak out too much.

Love ya guys!

Oh, and tell Bishop Soper, thanks for the letter. I liked it a lot. Sorry, I never have time to write much.

12/12/12

What it do mom?! sup? (will edit the typos later - mom)

So this will be real quick. Pretty busy today 'cause we got transfer day tomorrow. But that's too bad about Sister Brailsford. Oh and for the music, if you haven't figured it out yet, don't worry about it. Not a big deal. That's sick about Mckay's call! Make sure he gets a congrats and a nice big hug from me. Everyone doin' aight?

Well lets see. So, I'm finally finished with my 3 month training. Woo! Now I only have to study for 3 hours in the morning instead of 4. But yeah, my comp's getting transferred, so I'll be leading my area... ha. I'm super bad at directions and the Philippines have so many streets and houses and no street names or addresses or anything really. Ha oh well. I'm stoked to stay here though. My wards the best and I'm excited to stay here for Christmas. Ha! I've been praying I wouldn't transfer before Christmas. Oh, and I'll let you know all the details for our Skype sesh next Wednesday. 

Some highlights from the week:  We went caroling last night and took hymn books and cookies my comp and I made to some less actives and a few of our recent converts. Haha!  That was fun. Apparently I have a good voice.  Ha! that's a first. A lot of people are pretty bad at singing even though they all sing karaoke 24/7. Haha! I love it. the people here crack me up.

Today I went shopping with Elder Christensen, a kid from Alpine, UT. We shopped at this super busy place with a bunch of little shops on the streets. I'm gettin' pretty pro at bargaining. I just work my charms with my crappy Tagalog and get stuff for way cheap. I bought two bags, a fake Oakley and a fake North Face, a sick pair of shoes and two sick hats for like 10 bucks. Pretty proud. 

The work here is still going great! Our ward's improved so much since we've been here. No joke. Ha, even though half our ward didn't come to church Sunday cause Pacquiao (a Philippino boxer everyone is obsessed with) had a fight on Sunday. 

But yeah, hope you're all doing well. I'm excited for our Skype sesh in a few weeks! I'll let ya know all the details soon.

Love,
Elder Molnar

12/5/11

Woah what up? Happy almost Christmas!! Ah, I'm so stoked.  Yeah, I got one of the packages so far. I should get the other one soon. Thanks! I'll let ya know what I end up doing with the toys.  I've got some good ideas ;)

I'm glad to hear John's coming up for Christmas. Hopefully I'll getta skype him too. We have transfer day next week, but I'm pretty sure I'll be staying, which I really hope so. I don't wanna leave right before Christmas. But we've got some fun stuff coming up. Tonight we're making a ton of cookies with a member family for our ward caroling sesh on Friday. We're gonna carol a bunch of less actives and give some cookies and a hymn book and stuff. Put you guys on the prayer roll at the temple today.

But this week was dope. Our investigator, John got baptized Saturday, and confirmed/got the Priesthood on Sunday. So sick. That kid's a stud. I can't wait to see him go on a mission. It was cool 'cause we're the ones who started teaching him, so I got to see the whole changing process. So sick.

John Baptism

Another thing that made my companion and I feel good, we were having some H to H with a less active family who we've been working a lot with. Sister said to us that we saved their marriage. Before we came along, she was about ready to kick Brother out of the house. He's an amazing guy and has a strong testimony, but he struggles hard with drinking and other things. But that comment made my day. Obviously there's still a long way to go to get them into the temple and get brother to baptize his daughter, but I've loved seeing the progress these families make through the gospel. Crazy.

Welp, that's about it for now. Enjoy the pics! Oh wait, ha. The kid we baptized Saturday, he plays basketball on our ward team so we went to their tournament for a minute yesterday to support him and teach afterwards. Anyways, haha I loooove watching Pinoys play basketball. They go all out. Jerseys, huge announcing equipment, etc. Haha, they look so goofy. They all have terrible form and all think they're Michael Jordan when they play. Plus the announcer talks super fast and high pitched and sounds super Asian. Churchball is crazy. Our ward was going insane yesterday. Ha, we probably had more people there than we do at sacrament. But yeah, so funny.

K, well I'll talk to ya soon. Skype ya soon! I have a couple members who said we could use their computers. I'll probably do it at the Cardinos. They're the best and they actually speak English so you guys could meet them. Brother's the best though. he used to teach at the MTC and has been teaching little Tagalog lessons to me and my comp every once in a while.

But yeah that's all for now. Enjoy the pics! Love ya guys! Happy Christmas! Don't worry I'm buying plenty of presents for myself!

(Captions not included with the photos.  I did the best I could - Mom)

Mosquito - Philippines size

Not one of the larger spiders

Wedding before the baptism

Wedding Cake

Enjoying Thanksgiving!